Review of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol (being a Ghost Story of Christmas) and Little Dorrit

I decided to read A Christmas Carol for the first time. Like many others I have seen a few versions of this classic on TV, but never read it myself. So this was a small challenge I set myself.

Its not very long unlike most of Dicken's books, so it was an easy read. Very good descriptions of sights and scenes as he is renowned for. One of my favourite lines is:

"There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence"

Can't you just picture that!!

I must say that it wasn't really scary reading the book, the film versions are much more scary!!

I also finished watching the DVD (well 4 DVDs in the series) of Little Dorrit. I haven't read Little Dorrit yet, but I must say the DVD was excellent, such great characters. I think Matthew Macfadyen is a brilliant actor, such a handsome chap and with a beautiful voice. If you watch it, make sure that you watch the "How they made it" special feature. The demure Amy speaks in real life with a country sort of accent, while the commoner sister in the film speaks with a high class accent in real life!! Funny how the casting people pick actors and then they have to change their voices!! It worked well anyway, so they were great choices. Tom Courtenay made a brilliant father, his brother was played by a chap from The Vicar of Dibley, not sure of his name.

Each episode was quite short, so it was good to watch one or two episodes an evening, rather like reading a Dicken's serial as they were originally published! I heartily recommend this to anyone, beautiful production.

As I am a bit ahead having done some of Laura's Feb challenge already, I might also read some of Dickens detective stories (will post later in the month), at the moment I'm reading a really great Bronte novel called Romancing Miss Bronte (only published in 2010) which I can't put down.

These challenges certainly help to broaden my selection of reading material: its great that our libraries have so many books about authors, I love reading biographical type novels which expand my knowledge of the real people.

Thanks Laura for this great challenge!!
cheers
Julie